Maudsley Parents

Renee Hoste, PhD responds:

There is no specific Maudsley meal plan – the only meal plan is the one you come up with.  Parents are not given a diet plan outlining a certain number of proteins or fats that their child must eat.  We encourage parents to rely on the knowledge they already have about food and nutrition when deciding what to feed their starving child.  Most parents know how to feed their kids, and until the eating disorder came along, you had a healthy and well-fed child.  You may have other healthy and well-fed children at home.  Use the knowledge you have as a parent to decide what your child needs to eat in order to gain weight.  A Maudsley therapist can guide you in these decisions and offer suggestions, but the therapist will not dictate what your child should be eating.  The therapist leaves that up to the parents, as you are the experts on your own family.  Just remember that kids in recovery can need a surprising amount of food to reverse malnutrition.  Although each family is different, many parents find that energy dense foods such as milkshakes are very helpful (as opposed to trying to achieve weight gain through sheer volume of food).  Helpful high-calorie recipes can be found on this website by clicking here.